Wednesday, May 14, 2008

NIDA: Smoking 50 Joints a Day Not Harmful

I'm not sure that was the point of a study done by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, but that sure seemed to be the conclusion.

Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person's risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday.[...]

Levels of a protein called apolipoprotein C-III were found to be 30 percent higher in the marijuana users compared to the others. This protein is involved in the body's metabolism of triglycerides -- a type of fat found in the blood -- and higher levels cause increased levels of triglycerides, Cadet added.

High levels of triglycerides can contribute to hardening of the arteries or thickening of the artery walls, raising the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart disease.

Sounds kinda bad...I guess. Then we get this:

The study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease.

Right. Why bother? Back to the science!

"Chronic marijuana use is not only causing people to get high, it's actually causing long-term adverse effects in patients who use too much of the drug," Cadet, whose study is in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, said in a telephone interview. "Chronic marijuana abuse is not so benign."

The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history, the researchers said.

78-350 joints a week? A representative sample of the smoking population if I ever saw one. Actually, it sounds like they rounded up a bunch of vaginas for this study. Who only smokes 50 joints a day? Or even worse, 11? What a bunch of non-smoking losers.

The ONDCP blog is mysteriously silent on this relevant and damning study...Full article here.